Released on CD by the Repertoire label in the 90s, but long unavailable. A superb record that deserves a wider audience...

I've gotten quite a few albums from torrents and blogs that hold complete albums. All types of music, but the one thing that connects them all is that you cannot buy them anywhere for love nor money. It's the one aspect to the whole 'illegal' download culture that I'll stick up for and that doesn't get talked about by the industry. Huge catalogues of music simply aren't available, and would probably be a nice little earner for the companies if they made it available for download. There are probably licensing problems, copyright issues whatever, but they really have missed a trick by not making it available.

And so a network of fans - because generally the people who make these hard to get gems available are fans - make them available so that these things aren't lost forever.

For me getting a deleted album through torrents or whatever is no different to me paying a fortune from some collector or going to a secondhand shop and picking it up for a song. None of the proceeds of those sales end up in the artist/company pocket either.

I still have a very stretched cassette version which is close to unplayable now. The album was a great slice of intelligent 80's pop, and the soundtrack to my 'O' Levels. Much missed and sadly deleted by some idiot at the record company.

KLF's mighty 'White Room'- what is it with Bill Drummond and money? Is he allergic to it?

as last year showed with Hepworths fave, Pacific Ocean Blue, finally seeing the light of day, together with the lost second Fotheringay album, albeit somewhat doctored. I think Lindsay Buckingham teeter-totters about the Buckingham Nicks LP, as I believe he has the rights to it, often threatening to release it, without ever quite getting that far. Sometimes the most surprising records are available, albeit on obscure reprints via odd mail-order outlets (and these are the legal ones) as I discovered, looking for Kings of the Robot Rhythm by Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers.
Anyone know if the 3rd Any Trouble LP is available anywhere, 1983s eponymous Any Trouble, given the reappearance of all the others, at least in compilation form, over the past few years?
Also a fabulous LP I had yonks ago by Bell and Arc, whom, on wiki-ing, had a rather good line up.
Sweet Thursday by Nicky Hopkins group of the same name I also had back in the 70s and would like to see again.

.

Never come across this blogspot before. And it looks as if there are a host of similar........
Goody goody.

I'm all for making those available. It's a shame that they don't get legitimate release, but what are the odds the original artist would get anything out of it anyhow. The amount of deals that probably wouldn't cover a re-release are criminally large.

But in the meantime why should these albums gather dust, when there is an audience for such things.

I've made unavailable items available via my own blog and had correspondence from the original artists thanking me for doing so, because it gets them more exposure and they don't want their albums to disappear into the mists of time.

There must be a lot of albums where there is no good reason to not make it available but there are some good (or at least explainable) reasons; Some albums have never been digitised and the original master tapes have been mislaid - hasn't stopped some people putting out CDs with "authentic" clicks and pops on though. Some albums are kind of sort of possibly earmarked for a retrospective box set type packaging and the record company doesn't want to dilute the sales.

The SFM label was one of the earlier CD reissue specialists, and had a good roster of obscurities at one time. Cue some kind of 'problems with the business model' (they went bust?) and oodles of good titles once more retreat into the shady hinterland of deletesville. For years, the only people who can put their hands on the masters are the despicable vultures known as 'lawyers'.
(pace, Massive legal eagles, poetic licence).
Hence, for example, the fab Clive James & Pete Atkin LPs which have only re-emerged blinking in the last month.

Free the tunes! Stick it to the man.

Bunk Dogger
The Headboys
Bernard Manning Sings

Fave LPs never seen near a CD pressing plant

"Sailor" by Steve Miller Band get a re-release along with "Children Of The Future". All digitally re-mastered with extensive linear notes & outtakes. Please

comes to mind. Some of his early solo stuff is hard to find as is his Marc and the Mambas efforts.

It's amazing how some albums never see the light of day.

In these days of people wanting an album for about 20p (probably when they can't find it as a torrent, I paid over 20 dabs each for the Jap imports of the two Trickster albums.

Guilty pleasure I'm afraid.

Yet another fave, The Move, have their back cat repackaged weekly.

Most can be found in some manner on the net.

The entire Go-betweens output. There has never been such an over-rated band but I seem to be the only one who has noticed. They can neither write not sing nor play. Delete away...

has a couple of long deleted Microdisney albums.
One of the most underated bands imo.
http://digivinyltal.blogspot.com/search?q=microdisney